The modern world is an electrified world. The light bulb, which was probably one of the greatest inventions of all time, profoundly changed humans life by illuminating the night and making it hospitable to a wide range of human activity. Until the light bulb and electricity were invented, people could see at night only with candles, fires, gaslights, or oil lamps. The electric light bulb provided brighter light so people were better able to read, sew, and do other things that required a lot of light.

Electricity comes into a light bulb via a hot wire connected to a tab on the base of the bulb. Inside the bulb the electricity goes through a wire leading to a piece of tungsten. The tungsten is very thin and coiled to maximize resistance in the wire. When electricity meets resistance, it heats up the resistor.

The tungsten gets to a temperature of about 4500° Fahrenheit (2482° Celsius). This causes it to get white hot. It glows, and glows quite brightly. Tungsten is used because it has a very high melting point.

The tungsten is encased in a bulb for good reason. Not only does it protect people and objects from the hot tungsten, it also keeps oxygen away from the hot metal, which would make it immediately burn up. The bulb is usually filled with a low pressure, inert gas such as argon.

After the electricity has made its way through the tungsten filament, it goes down another wire and out of the bulb via the metal portion at the side of the socket. It goes into the fixture and out a white wire.

In the early 1800’s, inventors started experimenting with electric light. In 1802, Humphry Davy invented the first electric light. He experimented with electricity and created an electric battery. Then he used it to connect piece of carbon to it using wires, so that carbon glowed and produced light. His invention was known as the Electric Arc lamp. And while it produced light, it didn’t produce it for long and was much too bright for...

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...The LightBulb: One of the Most Useful Inventions in the World
People need light to be able to see. In the morning, there is sunlight. But in the night, people use electriclight made from lightbulbs. Without lightbulbs, people would not be able to see and would have to rely on their other senses to do tasks. Without lightbulbs, our lives would be very different. The lightbulb is a very useful invention that people all over the world use every day.
The creation of the lightbulb can be traced back to the 19th century. In 1800, Humphrey Davy made the arc lamp (“Lighting”). But the arc lamp was very dangerous because light was made by sparks, increasing the chance of fire (Burnie 52). In 1860, Joseph Swan made an incandescent lightbulb. But the lightbulb had many disadvantages. The lightbulb burned out in an hour and it cost a lot of money (Burnie 52). Also, the filament was made of pure carbon, so when the carbon burnt, it filed the bulb with soot (“Lighting”). Then in 1879, Thomas Edison made a better incandescent (a term for heat-driven light emissions) lightbulb. Time News reported, “Thomas Edison is...

...In 1880, Thomas Alva Edison invented the incandescent lightbulb and patented it. It’s an invention that has been around since the 1800's. This invention has significantly, affected society by allowing the world to create a comfortable safe environment. Edison had come up with a 16-watt bulb that lasted for over 1,500 hours. Edison's lightbulb needed improvements, and those improvements are the reason we havelightbulbs today.
The lightbulb was invented by using a low current electricity, a small carbonized filament, and an improved vacuum inside the globe; this was not an original invention by Edison this was an improved invention by Edison from 50 years ago. Edison's bulb design had a pointy top but looked similar to the lightbulbs you would see today. The socket was at the base, just as lightbulbs used today. The electriclight had a thin carbonized cotton thread filament sealed inside a fragile glass vacuum tube. The bulb worked by passing direct current through the filament. Edison carried out experiments with over 6,000 filaments in order to pick the perfect one that would glow well and last a long time. He also tried many different materials and looked at the efficiency of different filament diameters, structures, and shapes....

...Physics of a LightBulb
Catherine Bellet
Lab Partners:
Natalie Russell
Alex Harris
TA: Chad Lunceford
PHY 114
TH @ 2:25pm
Abstract:
Ohm’s law states, via the equation V=I*R, that the voltage found across a piece of material is proportional to the current. If the temperature remains constant therefore the resistance is found to remain constant. Stefan-Boltzmann law states that when the temperature if above an average of 1000K, then the relationship of voltage and current should be found to be consistent with the formula AT4. The experimental data found in this, Physics of a LightBulb, experiment both correlates and verifies the Stefan-Boltzmann law. The voltage and current were found to be proportional to one another, verifying Ohm’s law. In addition, the fact that radiation away from the lightbulb is indeed proportional to the fourth power of temperature was observed and again verified through a linear fit graph. The percent error found between the two experimental B values was found to be an average 6%. This showing proving that the experiment was decently accurate.
Objective:
To measure the relation between voltage and current in a small flashlight bulb; to determine the temperature of the filament; to verify the Stefan-Boltzmann law of radiation.
Procedure:
Begin the experiment by correctly setting up the circuit. Using the DMM set, find the resistance...

...An article on General Electric
The history of General Electric Company is a significant part of the history of technology in the United States. General Electric (GE) has evolved from Thomas Edison's home laboratory into one of the largest companies in the world, following the evolution of electrical technology from the simplest early applications into the high-tech wizardry of the early 21st century. The company has also evolved into a conglomerate, with an increasing shift from technology to services, and with 11 main operating units: GE Advanced Materials, a specialist in high-performance engineered thermoplastics, silicon-based products, and fused quartz and ceramics used in a wide variety of industries; GE Consumer &amp; Industrial, which is one of the world's leading appliance manufacturers, stands as a preeminent global maker of lighting products for consumer, commercial, and industrial customers, and also provides integrated industrial equipment, systems, and services; GE Energy, one of the largest technology suppliers to the energy industry; GE Equipment Services, which offers leases, loans, and other services to medium and large businesses around the world to help them manage their business equipment; GE Healthcare, a world leader in medical diagnostic and interventional imaging technology and services; GE Infrastructure, which is involved in high-technology protective and productivity solutions in such areas as water...

...The lightbulb is an invention that has been around since the 1800's. This invention has significantly, affected society by allowing the world to create a comfortable safe environment.
The lightbulb was invented in 1879 using lower current electricity, a small carbonized filament, and an improved vacuum inside the globe; this was not an original invention by Edison this was an improved invention by Edison from 50 years ago. Edison was able to produce a reliable, long-lasting source of light. The idea of electric lighting was not new, and a number of people had worked on, and even developed forms of electric lighting. But up to that time, nothing had been developed that was remotely practical for home use. Edison's eventual achievement was inventing not just an incandescent electriclight, but also an electric lighting system that contained all the elements necessary to make the incandescent light practical, safe, and economical. After one and a half years of work, success was achieved when an incandescent lamp with a filament of carbonized sewing thread burned for thirteen and a half hours.
There are a couple of other interesting things about the invention of the lightbulb: such as, Edison actually had to invent a total of seven system elements that were critical to the practical...

...LIGHT EMITTING DIODES
Light Emitting Diodes are electronic components that use the flow of electrons to excite materials into emitting photons of light. A diode is a basic electronic component that allows electricity to flow one way only. The discovery of "light emitting" diodes we believe was an accident sometime around 1907 when a diode in an early radio transmitter was noticed to glow when in use.
Incandescentbulbs use resistance in a filament to impede the flow of electricity, heating up to a degree which emits light. It takes high amounts of energy to do this and the filament burns out in time and high levels of wasted energy are given off in the form of heat. Quite a "green" product from a manufacturing and chemical/recyclable point of view.
CFL "energy savers", fluorescent tubes and many other conventional lamps use higher frequency alternating current to excite harmful chemicals to emit light. One 5 foot 1,5meter tube contains enough mercury to contaminate a swimming pool. Billions have been dumped into waste disposal. Heavy metal poisons have a cumulative effect. In the long term these cannot be a "fix" for the energy crisis we face today. They are poisoning our earth and also us directly through the food chain and locally with emission of harmful UV. So "Energy savers" are in the writers opinion very dangerous and should be banned.
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...General Electric Incandescent LightBulb
Until just over a century ago, man had two sources for light: the Sun and fire. This all changed with the development of the electriclight. The lightbulb changed the world immensely. No longer does the world comprise of barbaric people who lived in the dark but a civilized culture who have light at their fingertips. This paper will study in depth the production process, the disposal, and future of the incandescent lightbulb.
The origins of the electriclight can be dated as far back as 1802 by Sir Humphry Davy. He was able to produce an electriclight, but his design was for most purposes impractical. When Thomas A. Edison designed and successfully tested the modern incandescent light in 1879, it caused a revolution resulting in mass production of the bulb. Almost no changes have been made to Edison's original design (Rose and Schlager 145-147). It is used by numerous lightbulb producers, one of the most prevalent being General Electric (GE).
The standard GE lightbulb consist of the aluminum base which connects to the ends of an electrical circuit. The base is attached to two stiff nickel-iron alloy...

...specific articles related to Thomas Edison’s invention of the lightbulb, and for numerous reasons. The main reason being I wanted to see what it would be like to step back in time to the absolute wonderment surrounding such an exciting and revolutionary invention. In our current age, when we can literally teleport objects like atoms from one place to another, I feel it’s safe to say the lightbulb is something we all take for granted, at best, and more likely, don’t even think about at all. Another reason being I don’t have the foggiest in terms of the details surrounding how Edison’s company was able to figure out the wiring, supplying power, or most anything in terms of the process of actually making it happen. The final reason is because I think it’s important to see if there’s anything we can learn from our past, both good and bad, and even more so, to see how we can apply that to new technologies and new inventions in present day, especially for ones as colossal as the lightbulb.
In early May of 1881 the Boston Journal sent a correspondent named Nick Sidom to New York City, and on May 5th and 7th, the Journal published his letters. His main job was to give a full report of the electric lighting that was put into place around the city by Edison’s ElectricLight Company. Wasting no time in his first correspondence, the first line in his letter...